The plan for Downtown Kendall was instigated by the local chamber of commerce, property owners, and neighbors. In a public in summer 1998, Dadeland Mall area business leaders and citizens gathered together to chart a course for evolving the thriving suburban mall and surrounding sprawl into a metropolitan center that better leverages its unique place in the regional transportation system. The Master Plan and Overlay Code for "Downtown Kendall" resulted from a June 1998 study dealing with an emerging "edge city" urban center in Miami-Dade County. The study area lies at the convergence of several regional transit corridors (including two Metrorail stations) and the intersections of four heavily-traveled arterial roadways that crisscross an intense mixture of retailing, offices, hotels, and residential neighborhoods. The study area also includes the famous Dadeland Mall. While the area has experienced remarkably fast growth, the development is extremely fragmented; poor pedestrian accessibility and visual blight dominate this auto-oriented situation. Dover-Kohl and DPZ collaborated to produce the plan and a graphic Code, under the direction of a steering committee created by Chamber South, Miami-Dade County government, and citizen organizations.
One of the county's first malls, Dadeland features more than 175 specialty shops, anchored by four large department stores: Burdines, JCPenney, Lord & Taylor, and Saks Fifth Avenue. Sixteen restaurants serve from the adjacent Treats Food Court. New retail stores are constantly springing up around this centerpiece of South Miami suburbia. If you're not in the area, however, the mall is not worth the trek. Additionally, many non-Spanish-speaking people are put off by Dadeland because of the predominance of Spanish-speaking store employees.